Usually, after arriving in Yokohama, I hand over the rice to Misang and take a tour of Tokyo.
I do have a hidden motive to see how much Tokyo has developed, but honestly, it’s more about a future person who fell into this era taking a trip to the past.
For someone who lived in the asphalt jungle of the 21st century, even a single dirt road from this era was a wondrous and beautiful sight.
In particular, the streets of Tokyo, which are developing day by day, are truly the best tourist attractions.
With the scent of the Edo Era still not completely gone and the spirit of new modernization mixed in, every single alley of this city provided wonderful sights for a 21st-century time traveler.
Moreover, riding in a rickshaw or carriage is a delightful experience.
Especially for a person from the future, the rickshaw, a means of transportation that seems purely novel, provides a fresh experience every time I ride it.
If there were difficult sections like a hill, I would feel sorry for the rickshaw puller, but fortunately, Tokyo is a city built on a complete plain, so I liked that there were no such parts, making me feel at ease.
Of course, the two guards, Bittu Singh and Chitt Singh, followed behind me in their own rickshaws, so there were no particular security issues.
I booked a hotel with the intention of enjoying Tokyo sightseeing for a week or two and then returning to Sidimi.
When I returned from a rickshaw tour, the Manager of the hotel approached me hurriedly and spoke.
“Mr. Smith, do you happen to know the language of Joseon?”
I mainly use my real name, Lee Myeong-jin, when dealing with people from Joseon or China.
I use the name Viktor Mikhailovich Lee when dealing with Russians, and for the British or other Europeans, I use Victor Lee, the British pronunciation of Viktor Lee.
However, when dealing with Japanese people, I mainly use the name Victor Smith.
Many Japanese people think I am of Japanese descent, and if I use Lee, there is a risk they might mistake me for Chinese or discover I am of Joseon descent.
If that happens, there are many disadvantages in various aspects.
Even so, I didn’t create a separate Japanese name because at this time, Japan’s worship of the West was so great that having a British-style name actually made me look more authoritative to them.
When I show myself using English, France, Germany, Russia, and China fluently at a Tokyo hotel, most Japanese people look at me with eyes full of awe.
Furthermore, it is fun to see how they view me as a mysterious figure full of secrets when they see me always accompanied by Indian guards.
Having experienced such things from me several times, the Manager of the hotel thought of me as a teenage tycoon who was a language genius from Japan and had achieved great wealth using these linguistic skills as a weapon.
The Manager knew for a fact that I had been to Joseon a few times, so he asked, thinking that if I were a language genius, I might also know the language of Joseon.
“I know it a little, but what is the matter?”
“An envoy from Joseon is said to be staying at our hotel, but since there are no employees at our hotel who know the language of Joseon, I am making a request to you, Mr. Smith.”
“Are you asking me to interpret?”
“There is that, but since you, Mr. Smith, have experience visiting Joseon, wouldn’t you know better than us about the etiquette of the Joseon people? Our President said we cannot show a rude appearance to the Joseon envoy and asked me to make a request to you.”
If it was a Joseon envoy arriving around this time, it would be either Kim Ki-su or Kim Hong-jip, and meeting them didn’t seem like a bad experience for me either.
I nodded.
“Fortunately, I have been to Joseon a few times, so I know the language of Joseon a little. If I can be of help, I should naturally help.”
In the afternoon, as expected, a group of Joseon people arrived in a carriage.
Their appearance, all wearing Gat and Dopo, made them clearly Joseon people at a glance.
I remembered seeing photos of them wearing Samo-gwandae before, but it seems Samo-gwandae was the outfit worn for formal events or when taking pictures, while their everyday wear was the Gat and Dopo style.
I gave the hotel staff a few points of caution.
“Basically, just because a foreigner acts slightly against their etiquette, the Joseon people won’t necessarily feel bad. However, it is best to avoid smoking in front of them or refilling a glass before it is empty. Also, since men and women cannot sit together, there must never be a situation where a female employee directly attends to them. You must follow this at least.”
Well, there was no way a hotel employee would smoke in front of a guest, and they wouldn’t refill a glass in the Japanese style, so those weren’t big issues, but the matter of a woman stepping forward was different, so I gave a strong warning.
As evening approached, a small banquet was held for the Joseon envoys, and I went out to them and spoke in the language of Joseon.
“It is a great honor to meet the high officials of Joseon in a place like this.”
At my fluent Joseon speech, the Susinsa party, with Kim Hong-jip as the Jeongsa, all had surprised expressions.
The youngest Jongsagwan among the party, Seo Gwang-beom, stepped forward and asked.
“Who are you to speak the language of Joseon?”
“My name is Victor Smith. I am a merchant doing business in the United Kingdom, but since I can speak the language of Joseon, I was requested by the hotel side to provide hospitality for you all.”
The Susinsa party led by Kim Hong-jip felt that the most uncomfortable thing about coming to Japan was that the interpretation was poor.
They could have conversations through written notes with people proficient in Classical Chinese, but in other cases, the Joseon language skills of the interpreters provided by Japan were truly poor.
The Japanese government found people who could speak the Joseon language in Tsushima and assigned them as interpreters, but these were people who had learned the language for trading in Dongrae or Busan, so they didn’t communicate well with the Susinsa party, who were high officials of The Royal Court.
There is a difference in the vocabulary itself used by a high official of The Royal Court and a merchant from Dongrae.
Therefore, there are many times when communication isn’t smooth even between fellow Joseon people, let alone with a Japanese person.
In contrast, I am a person who was granted linguistic abilities as a cheat, so I could sufficiently understand the Joseon speech of high officials of this era.
On top of that, with the refinement of a 21st-century person mixed in, there were no obstacles in my conversation with them.
At first, Seo Gwang-beom stepped forward, then the Busa Hong Yeong-sik came out, and eventually, the conversation was mainly shared between the Jeongsa Kim Hong-jip and me.
Kim Hong-jip asked with a surprised look.
“Oho, then you are saying that you, Mr. Smith, even own a steamship as large as 2,000 tons?”
“I had opportunities to earn money through various matters, and fortunately, great merchants from Shanghai and Hong Kong as well as India and the United Kingdom helped me, so it turned out that way. Since I am a person who lost both parents early, as a young orphan traveling and trading in several countries, I found that I needed my own ship.”
“And the guards behind you are those who came from Cheonchuk?”
“That is correct. Because these people are here, I can do business and make a living with peace of mind even at a young age.”
Kim Hong-jip was turning exactly 40 this year, and unusually for a Joseon person of this era, he had no beard on his face.
Many people think that men of the Joseon era did not cut their beards because of the passage from the Confucian scriptures stating that the body, hair, and skin are received from the parents, but in reality, young Joseon people of this era also cut their beards.
That’s why even now, young people like Hong Yeong-sik, Yu Gil-jun, and Seo Gwang-beom had no beards.
However, the fact that a person of Kim Hong-jip’s status had no beard was a bit strange, but even so, I couldn’t ask such a high-ranking official about my curiosity.
Kim Hong-jip is a titan among titans who dominated the Joseon political scene in the late Joseon period and is an extremely bright person.
He is a person whose brain rotation itself is of a different quality compared to someone like me who solves problems with 21st-century cheats.
During our brief conversation, he clearly recognized the fact that I wanted to speak separately.
“Since I live in a remote and secluded country like Joseon, my knowledge of the wide world is too shallow. Since you have traveled the world extensively, could you tell me about the world in my room tonight?”
“To say my knowledge is wide is an overstatement. However, since there are a few things I have seen and heard, I can certainly tell you about those.”
The simple banquet ended relatively early, and I went into the room where Kim Hong-jip was staying and talked with him.
The other members of the party also seemed to want to talk with me, but because the status of the Jeongsa Kim Hong-jip was what it was, they didn’t dare to request it, so Kim Hong-jip and I were able to talk alone.
In the seat where I met him privately, I held out a book. It was a book made with Western-style binding, but starting from the title, it was a book written in Hangul.
Kim Hong-jip was surprised right from the cover of the book, which had the title ‘World Affairs’ stamped in Hangul.
“World Affairs? It looks like a Western book on the outside, but why is it written in the Eonmun of Joseon? What kind of book is this?”
“By any chance, are you aware of the fact that Joseon people have crossed over and are living in Primorsky Krai beyond the border of Russia and Joseon?”
Kim Hong-jip nodded.
“I heard that when there was a famine in the past, there were Joseon people who crossed the border and lived there. Don’t tell me this book was written by them?”
“About 2,000 Joseon people are living together in a place called Sidimi in Russian Primorsky Krai. They worked hard at farming and became quite well-off, and since their livelihood is decent, they are also diligent about their children’s education. When they established a school, the Russian Government sent teachers to teach the children subjects like Russian and mathematics, but the people there are teaching Eonmun so the children do not forget the fact that they are Joseon people, and this is one of the books they use to learn the Joseon language. As you can see, it is a book to teach children the current state of the world so they do not grow up ignorant of world affairs.”
Upon hearing my words, Kim Hong-jip began to scan the book quickly.
Inside the book, a simple world map was drawn, and the names of each country were written on the map.
And as it got into the core content, there were brief explanations of the situation of each country, stories about the Industrial Revolution and the development of science and technology, and stories about the behavior of Imperialism currently spreading across the world.
Although it was merely a brief manual of about 300 pages, even such information was a peerless guide for a thirsty Joseon person.
Kim Hong-jip forgot the fact that he was talking to me and read through the book rapidly.
Kim Hong-jip is a person with an extremely good brain, but perhaps because the Hangul written in the book was not familiar, it took a bit of time at first, but it began to get faster and faster, and later, he had read almost half of it in less than 30 minutes.
Then he hastily closed the book and apologized to me.
“I was so engrossed in the book that I even forgot I was talking to Mr. Smith. Are the Joseon children in Primorsky Krai really studying with this book?”
“That is correct. They even set up a printing office in the village of Sidimi where they live and are printing books. I happen to have a few more copies of the same book, so I will give them to the Susinsa members.”
“I am truly grateful for your consideration, Mr. Smith. This book contains more detailed content than any book I have read so far. Especially concerning these stories about Imperialism and the Industrial Revolution and technological development, I feel like a blind man who has opened his eyes.”
Since a school was built in Sidimi last year, the Primorsky Krai government dispatched Russian teachers to teach Russian, and priests from the Russian Orthodoxy were also dispatched to teach Orthodox doctrine.
However, I did not want the Joseon children to be completely assimilated into Russia, so starting with a simple Hangul manual, I made several textbooks in Hangul. And I even set up a printing office to print these books.
There were books I bought when I went to London last time, and there were also books I had read in my previous life, so creating the content itself was not difficult, but the problem was Hangul grammar.
In this era, there was no organized way to use Hangul yet, so I just wrote it down as it sounded without spacing, but I deliberately put in spacing and included symbols like commas and periods.
I am far ahead of the people of this era in other knowledge, but I am also the most outstanding person in this era regarding National Grammar.
I reflected this as much as possible using this knowledge to write this textbook, but I left out most of the modern translation terms and made the book by putting in words used in this era.
Kim Hong-jip spoke with an impressed expression.
“If the Joseon children of Russia grow up learning such things, they will be able to do great things for Joseon in the future. I will do my best so that these children in Joseon can return to Joseon.”
“They will probably not want to return just like that. The Joseon children in Sidimi are growing up in an environment far more affluent than Joseon. The children still wear Joseon clothes and do not cut their hair, but for food, they eat I-bap and meat soup every day, and meat side dishes never disappear from the dining table. Also, their clothing is good, so when clothes wear out, they immediately make and put on new ones. Fabrics like Calico are common, and for holidays, they make and wear clothes made of silk. If The Royal Court of Joseon treats the Joseon children of Russia as mere descendants of criminals who escaped the border, they will never go to Joseon.”
Kim Hong-jip seemed to feel that the road ahead would not be easy in that part, as he let out a groan, then nodded and asked.
“Was Russia such a wealthy country that they could treat immigrants like that?”
“Not at all. It’s just that the Joseon people worked hard and built wealth. They farmed so hard that they had leftovers even after eating their fill, to the point of selling tens of thousands of sacks of rice to Japan every year.”
“By the way, Mr. Smith, how is it that you have the books that the Joseon people of Russia learn from?”
“That’s simple. I have it because I wrote that book.”
***